“Really, Papa?”
“Really. Now, after dinner I must leave you for just a little while. I must ride to see Erickson MacPhail. There are matters I need to discuss with him. He wasn’t there earlier. I won’t be long.”
“Is it about Mary Rose, Papa?”
Tysen started to shake his head, but then he realized there was a thread of fear in his daughter’s voice. What could she possibly know about this mess? He said, “Yes, Meggie, it is about Mary Rose. But don’t worry, all right? I will make certain he understands the, er, situation.”
Tysen sat back then, waiting for her to beg him to take her with him. To his surprise, she didn’t say another word. She was studying the buttered potatoes in the center of her plate. Now this was strange, he thought, and he was soon frowning. Something was going on here. But what?
It was then that Mrs. MacFardle said from the doorway, “Excuse me, my lord, but Sir Lyon is here. He insists that he must speak to you. He won’t be put off—not that I would, naturally, even if you were in your bed, sleeping.”
“Thank you, Mrs. MacFardle. Tell Sir Lyon that I will be right along.” Tysen tossed his napkin beside his plate and rose. He’d taken two steps when he realized that Meggie wasn’t right on his heels. He was surprised to see her wrapping several slices of bread in a napkin.
He didn’t say anything, but he planned to get to the bottom of whatever this was later. He strode out of the dining room. Sir Lyon was waiting for him in the entrance hall. Pouder was sitting in his chair beside the front door, his head down, nearly reaching his chest, apparently asleep.
“Sir,” Tysen said. “Is there a problem?”
“Where is she, my lord?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Mary Rose. She is gone. She never came home from her ride. She has disappeared.”
He felt instant, corroding fear. He hoped it didn’t show on his face. “And you believe she is here?”
“There is no place else she would go. Of course,
her aunt claims that she would never come here, that she would be too embarrassed at her behavior, but I disagree.
“Come now, where is she, my lord? You must tell her that she is to come to me, at once.”
“I’m sorry,” Tysen said slowly, staring at Sir Lyon, whose face was becoming alarmingly red, “but I am afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would Mary Rose disappear? What has happened?”
“I do not know,” Sir Lyon said.
Tysen said, “You do not lie well, sir. Come into the drawing room and tell me why Mary Rose felt she had to leave your home.”
Sir Lyon bellowed at the top of his lungs, not moving an inch, “Damnation, there is nothing at all to tell, particularly to you, a bloody English vicar! She is my niece, in my care, curse her eyes, and I want her! Now.”
Pouder jerked upright, blinking his rheumy old eyes, then shaking his head.
“She isn’t here,” Tysen said calmly.
“Aye,” said Pouder. “Mary Rose isn’t here. I haven’t left my post for the past three hours and then it was just for a moment or two when I was needed to fold his lordship’s cravats.”
Tysen smiled at the old man, then said again, “Mary Rose isn’t here.”
Sir Lyon knew when most men were lying. And he knew to his bones that this damned young man, who was also a vicar, wasn’t lying. His eyes were clear of deceit, and a man who deceived as well as Sir Lyon did certainly knew deceit when he saw it. No, the young man’s voice was firm and unexcited. Sir Lyon also understood choler, knew what it felt like, what it sounded like. No, the damned young man, the cursed English vicar who was also the new Lord Barthwick, wasn’t lying, damn his eyes. “Then where is she?”
Tysen said very slowly, his fear for Mary Rose rising with his level of anger at this man, “What in God’s name have you done, man?”
“Nothing, I tell you. Nothing at all. The girl—no, she’s not a girl at all anymore, curse her, she’s a damned woman. She is flighty, too flighty for a spinster of her advanced years, and she is stubborn, more stubborn than her madwoman of a damned mother. She turned him down flat, and naturally he didn’t like it.”
Tysen felt his anger turn to rage. It was pouring through him, making his pulse pound, sending his blood roaring, ringing in his brain, making his eyes red. “MacPhail tried to rape her, didn’t he?”
“No! Bloody hell, I don’t know! She jumped in the bloody stream and was quickly swept away from him. He couldn’t find her.”
“Are you telling me that MacPhail just left and came running to you?”